


Apocalypse

by maggiedragon



Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies)
Genre: Dubious Consent, Emotional Manipulation, Gay Berlin, M/M, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Public Hand Jobs, Theseus is Not Okay, no redeeming value
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-01
Updated: 2018-07-31
Packaged: 2019-06-19 19:57:37
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,012
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15517443
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/maggiedragon/pseuds/maggiedragon
Summary: Percival had gone. Percival had gone and Theseus enrolled in the Auror Academy becauseCaptain Theseus Taliesin Felix Scamanderwas good at war, good at tactics and killing and he didn’t know how to make that a talent that would let him sleep at night.  Some days the training exhausted him enough he could sleep at night; some days he woke screaming until his throat was hoarse and his brother came running.Sometimes he didn’t sleep at all. Sometimes he went into Soho and drank until he could shed the skin ofCaptain Scamander, until gin and the taste of a stranger’s skin replaced the blood and muck of the trenches. He lost himself in other people, their taste, their touch, and sometimes, when the strongest gin and the hardest fuck couldn’t make the artillery stop, he found other people who understood the apocalypse.  They had been used; they had been cheated, and the posh old men who sent their neighbors’ sons (oh, never their own) to die were never going to pay for it.





	Apocalypse

**Author's Note:**

> Awhile back, Warner Brothers released a blurb about families divided in the upcoming movie. So this started as a thought experiment as to what could make (my) Theseus truly become a traitor. And well. Nothing about this is happy. 
> 
> CN: dubious consent-- description of the issue at the end.

A young man came back broken from the war. Disillusioned and hurting, scars on his body and artillery in his soul. They gave him a medal for “conspicuous gallantry,” a desperate act of bravery his shattered mind wouldn’t let him remember.

This is not a new story. 

When the war ended, his sweetheart left him. The world had ended for them there on the battlefield, left them stranded and choking in a hell of mud and screams, but then it ended as inexplicably as it had begun. Percival Graves went back to New York and his family and his duties. Because their apocalypse hadn’t changed a thing. Hadn’t changed the world, hadn’t changed society and its rules and its expectations. 

Percival left and Theseus stayed.

Are you listening _now?_

He enrolled in the Auror Academy because _Captain Theseus Taliesin Felix Scamander_ was good at war, good at tactics and killing and he didn’t know how to make that a talent that would let him sleep at night. Some days the training exhausted him enough he could sleep at night; some days he woke screaming until his throat was hoarse and his brother came running. 

Sometimes he didn’t sleep at all. Sometimes he went into Soho and drank until he could shed the skin of _Captain Scamander_ , until gin and the taste of a stranger’s skin replaced the blood and muck of the trenches. He lost himself in other people, their taste, their touch, and sometimes, when the strongest gin and the hardest fuck couldn’t make the artillery stop, he found other people who understood the apocalypse. They had been used; they had been cheated, and the posh old men who sent their neighbors’ sons (oh, never their own) to die were never going to pay for it. 

One of those men (a blood purist but Merlin, he made Theseus come so hard he saw stars) told him to go to Berlin. 

“Stars above, you ought to see the clubs there if nothing else. And if you can crawl your way out of your piles of lovers, there’s a man you ought to hear speak.” 

“You’re shitting me. Go listen to a Bosch?” 

“So he’s German. What about it? Theseus, if _any_ of us got fucked, they did the hardest.” 

Theseus knew; he’d been there for the disarmament, watched the cowed German government pile up artifacts-- old grimoires, enchanted gems, prototype magic weapons-- so Theseus could incinerate them all, one by one. 

“I think if I go to Berlin, I’ll get murdered,” he said and found a better way to occupy his mouth than with this conversation. 

 

The idea lingered, and so did the name-- _Gellert Grindelwald_ \-- foreign, but by no means any stranger than _Theseus Scamander_. He left the Auror Academy each day with every muscle aching and then studied until his brain joined in the pain. The blood purist mentioned Berlin again, bars full of women in three pieces, men in rouge and mascaroa, liters of crisp German beer and all the dancing he could want with no one to blink at his choice in partner. 

“And this Bosch.” 

“Don’t be a twat, Theseus. Pull your head out of your arse, listen to him talk and if you don’t like it, go home.” 

“Mmph.” 

He wasn’t even entertaining the possibility of Berlin-- not really-- until one of the speeches turned out to be scheduled on one of the first _actual weekends_ free he’d had in six weeks. They were newly minted Auror cadets now, having suffered through the hellish first half of Academy training, meant to weed out those that weren’t going to make it. They even had a small graduation ceremony, a reception afterwards with faery lights strewn across the lounge and lukewarm glasses of champagne. Theseus forced small talk for twenty minutes until he heard some posh idiot whose son had apparently had lungs too bad to let him fight but not to keep him out of the Academy murmuring _shame, really, the vintages used to be better. Suppose the damage to the fields couldn’t be helped._

He’d tasted blood and left. No one noticed. He’d not even told Newt or his parents the ceremony was happening. 

Getting a Portkey to Berlin still wasn’t easy and they didn’t run often, but he didn’t have to wait more than an hour, arriving in Lehrter Stadtbahnhof behind a Dissimulation Charm that turned the Portkey station into a cramped and dusty flower shop, redolent with the damp smell of roses and age. He changed the galleons in his pocket for Thaler, bought a sandwich and walked out of the station into the late summer air. He was heading towards Schoneberg but he had time to cross the river Spree on foot, wander down the Siegesallee under the broad leaves of the chestnut trees and the pompous stares of marble Prussian royalty. He hadn’t booked a hotel, hadn’t packed a bag, hadn’t even told Newt he was going, but he wandered the city until the sky grew dark, then Shrank his vest, tie and jacket so they could be tucked into a pocket, unfastened the top button of his shirt and Apparated the rest of the way. 

 

Berlin was _amazing_. Theseus had never seen so many queer people so public about who and what they wanted. The bars and clubs blurred together. He danced with a beautiful boy with long dark lashes, bought a bottle of champagne for the both of them and kissed him until his lips were numb. He spent nearly half an hour draped on the thigh of a blond his age who spoke absolutely no English but led so strongly that Theseus didn’t need to understand. He...actually wasn’t sure how he ended up at the last bar of the evening, but the bartender had been a medical student in Paris before the war and found his butchered French come-ons so terribly endearing that he’d brought him home. 

Not that Theseus had any idea where that was the next morning. Or where his clothes were. When he finally _did_ find them, along with a Hangover potion, a cup of coffee and a damp and lingering kiss from his host, there was also a business card he didn’t remember being given. 

“Hey, you ever seen one of these before?” he asked showing it to--- Elias. His name was Elias. 

The bartender took the card and looked it over before whistling appreciatively when he saw the pale opalescent butterfly laid into the smooth cardstock. “Club called _Ialaos_. Members-only. And you don’t remember who invited you?” 

“No.” Theseus snorted. “Doubt I have the clothes to not get thrown out anyway.”

“You’ve got the face for it,” Elias answered with a shrug and handed the card back. 

The _Ialaos_ was nowhere near as riotous as many other clubs in Schoneberg. It was tucked into a small sidestreet and distinguishable only by a small bronze butterfly laid into the cobblestones. He didn’t even seen the bouncer until he’d stepped back a nearly imperceptible Dissimulation Charm. 

“ _Guten abend,”_ he managed and produced the card. He had to conceal surprise when it worked and the bouncer stepped back to let him aside. 

_“Ein bier, bitte,”_ he said at the bar, exhausting the entirety of his (non-carnal, non-obscene) German. He was surprised again at the price-- nearly twice that of anywhere else he remembered in Schoneberg. 

“Are you meeting someone?” came a voice in perfectly accented English behind him. 

“Maybe? Not sure who.” Theseus glanced at the man who’d joined him at the bar. Average height, lean, with close-cropped blond hair so pale the word moonlight came to mind. Mid-thirties, maybe? Late thirties if he was being uncharitable; the pale hair made any grey imperceptible. Older regardless. 

Not that that had ever stopped Theseus. 

“A mysterious Englishman. How very delightful,” the man said. 

“My German is that bad?” Theseus had the vaguest sense that he was being mocked, but in the same breath the stranger gestured to the bartender to give Theseus his Thaler back and paid for the beer himself. 

“Your English is that distinctive. London. Covering up...Sussex?” The man quirked an eyebrow. “Someone taught you to be ashamed.” 

Theseus hid the brittleness of his smile with a long sip of beer. “Regional accents? That’s quite a party trick. Feel like I should be paying you, not the other way around.” 

The man touched his back and gestured towards a booth a little further into the club. “Tell you what, _schatzi._ You can buy the second round.” 

They talked. The man asked about England and Hogwarts and seemed to know more about the school and its houses-- _‘Gryffindor for the brave of heart, no?’_ \-- than Theseus would have expected from a foreign national. He asked about Durmstrang and the other man laughed. 

“Ancient history,” he dismissed and touched both glasses with his wand to make them refill. 

“Thought I was buying the second round?” Theseus said. 

“Were you?” the man echoed, glancing up from the newly refilled drinks. He had heterochromia. One brown eye, one such a clear blue it verged on the glacial. Theseus got caught in it for a moment, had to look away. There was a word for that sort of gaze. Bewitchment, maybe. 

Or hex.

“Yes. I was,” he got out, even though it was hard through a tight throat. 

The man offered a small, apologetic shrug. “You can buy the next round then.”

They talked. Theseus bought the third round. At some point, Theseus found himself talking about politics. He wasn’t sure how that had happened; of all the topics he probably ought to avoid in Berlin, hinting that he had been the British representative sent to destroy seventy-five percent of the MagiRegierung’s arcane armature once the Treaty of Versailles had been signed was extremely high on that list. 

“There’s going to be another war,” he heard his own voice say, drunk enough, indignant enough that he stumbled over words. “Those stupid posh fuckers weren’t there. They didn’t see how goddamn mad the Bosch-- _fuck,_ I’m sorry-- you all were about the Treaty.”  
“I’m not offended,” the man said mildly. “We had our propaganda about you as well. Bogeymen from children’s tales, meant to make us forget that we were more kin with your Irregulars than our own infantry.” 

“Perfidious Albion?” Theseus asked. 

The man lifted his own snifter of brandy. “And the savage Huns.” 

They drank. Theseus stared bleakly into his beer. 

“There’s going to be another war and when it happens it’ll be their fault. And we’ll be the ones to bleed for it,” he said. 

“And yet you’ve already volunteered.”

“What?” 

“You’re training to be an Auror, you said.” The other man made a small gesture with his fingers towards Theseus. “Looking for war even in peacetime.” 

_Had_ he said? Theseus’ head was dull and cloudy with alcohol and melancholy. He must have. He just didn’t remember. 

“I’m good at war,” he muttered finally and draining the pint of beer couldn’t wash away the sudden taste of blood and metal. 

“Our gifts become a burden when we can’t find the right path,” the other man said. 

“I don’t---” Understand? But he did, with a deep sense of loss and bewilderment that he didn’t want to feel.

And then the man was kissing him and he didn’t have to. Theseus wasn’t surprised, honestly. It _was_ that kind of bar; Elias had made that clear. The other man tasted like brandy, rich and thick like honey and his hand curved around the back of Theseus’ head, firm and steady and inexorable. There was nothing shy about it, a long and careful kiss that left Theseus panting at the end. 

“G--good evening to you too,” he got out.

“You’re complaining?” The other man chuckled and let his fingers trail from the back of Theseus’s head to the corner of his mouth. “How boring. You Brits are so terribly staid.” 

“Hardly,” Theseus said and nipped at the thumb so close to his mouth. He wasn’t expecting the other man to push, to slip between his lips and into his mouth, but Theseus certainly wasn’t balking, not after that challenge. He took the digit deeper instead, letting it slide back along his tongue until it bumped against the back of his throat. 

“Aren’t you perfect.” The man’s mismatched eyes lit with increasing delight, and his thumb pushed just a little more, just to the point where Theseus started to gag and then backed away. “You are a gift, _schatzi_.” 

The nickname was German, foreign, but there was no way Theseus was going to object, not with this man’s thumb between his lips, his fingers holding his lower jaw firm as the impossible praise dripped into his ears. The next time the man kissed him, Theseus leaned into it. He sucked lightly on the other man’s tongue, let him tug him close. The booth was cramped; Theseus’ hip bumped against the table, making the small _Lumos_ globe rock wildly. 

The other man laughed against his lips. He left mouth kisses down his throat, just this side of biting. “I take it back. You’re not staid at all,” he said and slid a hand up the inside of his thigh to cup him through his trousers.

“I don’t--” Theseus hesitated. This was public. More than that, they were being watched; he could feel eyes on his skin, glance out over the dimly lit bar and catch hastily averted gazes. 

“Everyone looking this way just wishes they were in my place,” the other man said calmly, even as the heel of his palm rocked slowly-- back and forth, back and forth-- and his mismatched eyes stayed fixed on Theseus. 

The other man’s thumb slid along his length; Theseus couldn’t stifle a whimper in response. He could feel himself hardening and the other man quirked a grin.

“I find myself doubting that you’re _only_ good at war,” he commented. “Let me choose the path, no? Let go for once.” 

Theseus was drunk and exhausted. The taste of blood and metal had only barely left his mouth, held at temporary bay by this foreign stranger’s clever hands and very little else. He was in _Berlin_ ; no one knew him here and what was the alternative? To go out into the night with his doubts and his wounds and have nowhere to go and no one to go to? So he let go. 

“Yes.” 

“Good,” and the stranger breathed his praise with vehemence. He pushed him back against the banquette and the kisses along his neck turned more aggressive. Theseus was going to have a bruise at the base of his throat when he went back to London, but all that mattered right now was the desire leaking into his blood, starting at the sharp point of pain and spilling over his skin like blood until it pooled in the base of his stomach. 

“Aren’t you beautiful and brave,” he purred against his throat as his hand slipped inside Theseus’ trousers and tugged him free. “A true Gryffindor.”  
Theseus bit his lip to keep back the whimper; the other man was as unapologetic in his touch as he had been in his kiss. He was hard and aching already, but doing this in such a public place was insanity; he could barely believe he’d agreed to such a thing. What if someone saw? What if someone from London was here and recognized him? 

He didn’t care. 

He didn’t _care_. The war and its apocalypse might have changed nothing about society and its expectations and the posh old men who’d sent Percival Graves running back to New York with his tail between his legs, but it had changed _him_. They could burn. He wanted who and want he wanted and right now he wanted this. This beautiful stranger with the mismatched eyes and the hand on his cock had chosen the path and all Theseus had to do was follow. 

His back arched against the banquette, hips pushing into the other man’s hand, seeking friction, seeking more. The moan that tore from his lips was loud and immodest, but it only earned him an approving chuckle and a slide of the other man’s tongue along his throat. Somehow the soft murmur of the crowd had gotten louder-- or his senses had sharpened, every ounce of aching desire going to feeling, to perceiving and getting so lost in sensation that he didn’t have to think. 

The taboo of it was still there; he still knew that his instructors at the Academy would mutter about _moral failings_ , that Percival would have gone wordless and uncomfortable at the idea and the frisson of it curled into his blood, heightened everything. The other man’s nail dragged along his shaft just for a moment and Theseus choked on nothing but air. Liquid pearled on the tip of his cock, making his new lover’s warm grip go slick and hot around him. He was so close already. 

“Perfection, aren’t you. You could take yourself apart for me just like that.” His thumb skidded along the tip of Theseus’ cock, demanding, relentless. “Go on, Captain. Show me how good you can be.”

Theseus came as if on command, heels skidding against the hardwood floor of the _Ialaos_ , cry only mostly muffled against his new lover’s neck as the world went star-streaked black. When he came back to himself, his heart was pounding. The beat of it echoed through his sluggish, sated body in pulses of fading pleasure and it was hard to find thoughts, to find words. 

The other man kissed his sweat-damp skin with a hint of teeth, a touch of possession. “Come back to my hotel,” he said. “I’ll give you more than this.” 

For just a moment, Theseus tried to remember when he had told the other man his rank. He couldn’t remember. Had he? But the stranger was hard against his thigh and Theseus’ mouth was too dry with reawakening desire to taste the blood. 

He didn’t care. 

“Yes,” he said.

**Author's Note:**

> CN Dubcon: Theseus is clearly drunk and hesitates repeatedly about having a sexual encounter in public. Gellert has to goad him repeatedly before he proceeds.


End file.
